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"Come on, Augustus, you used to be good at this," he said to himself.
He rolled his shoulders, shook out his hands, and reached his magic out to find traces of the saint.
He focused on the details he did know: the jars of tea, the rude cat, the red door, the feminine scent of perfume, and the clean hair that he hadn't managed to stop smelling.
It wasn't until he focused on how he'd been feeling (drunk and wallowing in ages-old anger) that he felt the magic of the shop hit him hard in the face.
He turned around and headed right, following a call that rattled through him and pulled viciously on the years of grief he worked so hard to keep a lid on. He put a hand against a gratified wall, sudden nausea overwhelming him. It felt like the shop had hooked around his deepest pain and was trying to rip it out of him.
"Sweet Mary, mother of God, what are you?" Augustus wheezed.
It was almost a relief when he turned left and right again and found a shining red door in the wall of a brick building.
When he twisted the handle, the ripping and pulling inside of him stopped. He pushed the door open, and there was the saint, looking like she was about to call down the vengeance of God to strike him dead.
Three
"Miracles havethe power to override even the most stubborn of curses." — Sayings of the Blessed Crow.
Mara Corvo hated two things more than anything: surprises and that the Sorcerer of Albert Street had somehow managed to find her shop again.
She had finally gotten over her shock of seeing him the first time and had gone to water the shop's succulents when he had burst through the door again.
He stared down at her from his six-foot-two height, eyes blazing and scarily sober. This charged staring competition drove a series of facts into Mara's shocked brain.
Firstly, the sorcerer wasn't as young as she thought. He had a light speckling of gray through his dark hair and eyes much older than his face. Secondly, he was handsome as the Devil and twice as dangerous, and thirdly, he had done something no one had ever been able to do, and that was find the teashop for a second time.
Mara could hope that it was a coincidence. "Have we met?"
"Of course we've met. Don't you remember me?" he asked incredulously.
Not a coincidence.Damn it.
"What are you doing back here?" Mara demanded.
"Looking for you. Why else would I be here?"
"What color is my hair?"
"It doesn't have one. It's like…snow. Why? Is that important?" he said, and she clutched the watering jug, her vision clouding as she swayed. The sorcerer hurried to steady her, but when he touched the bare skin of her elbow, magic and pain slammed through her.
The jug hit the floor, smashing to pieces, and a streak of black and gray pounced between them. The sorcerer swore as he caught Athanasius and slipped over. Mara clutched her knees, breath ragged.
"What did you do to me?" she asked.
"Funny, I was going to ask you the same bloody thing," he groaned. "Would you mind calling off your psychotic cat? I was only trying to help."
"You can help by never touching my granddaughter again," Athanasius hissed.
"So you can talk! I fuckingknewit." The sorcerer slowly sat up. "I don't suppose you could tell me what is going on?"
"Only if you tell me how you found this place again…and how you can see me," Mara added. Then guilt got the better of her, and she held out a hand to help him up.
She was ready for it this time. The sense of his magic glided along her skin, and underneath it, a well of grief so deep, she doubted she could cure it with all the tea in the store.
Augustus conjured a cloth and began to wipe up the spilled water. Mara picked up the jug pieces, careful not to touch him for the third time.
"Thank you. Ah, I'm sorry, I don't know your name."
